The NY Times is out today promoting the Coffee Party as a grassroots movement with ideologies similar to the Tea Party, but with a more palatable message. NY Times is so enamored with this group that they offered the Coffee Party free advertising space for their events. However, the media template echoing through the MSMs and portraying Coffee Party leader Annabel Park as an inexperienced and reluctant grassroots organizer is egregiously misleading. In truth, she has a large number of leftist connections and one in particular that leads to the Obama Administration.

NY Times quoted Annabel’s assessment of her role in the Coffee Party movement:

“I’m in shock, just the level of energy here,” said the founder, Annabel Park, a documentary filmmaker who lives outside Washington. “In the beginning, I was actively saying, ‘Get in touch with us, start a chapter.’ Now I can’t keep up. We have 300 requests to start a chapter that I have not been able to respond to.”

The Washington Post said the following of Annabel Park:

She's exhausted, overcommitted, passing whole days on Facebook, not collecting a paycheck, hopping between conference calls, sending e-mails at 4 a.m., smoothing out conflicts over strategy. She has been swept up in this project, and so have others.

In truth, Annabel is a longtime political wonk with a large number of leftist political connections.

The Washington Post reported that Annabel started the Coffee Party movement with a Facebook post expressing her frustration with the Tea Party Movement. The Washington Post goes on:

Friends replied, and more friends replied. So last month, in her Silver Spring apartment, Park started a fan page called "Join the Coffee Party Movement."

The real question Annabel needs to answer is, "exactly who on Facebook answered your post?" Or perhaps, that question is better left to Kalpen Modi (stagename Kal Penn), who is a friend listed on her Facebook page. See screenshot below; click to enlarge

When last we saw Kalpen, he was sailing off into the rising Obama sun and leaving his acting job as Kutner on Fox’s TV show House to take a position in the Obama administration. Kalpen Modi is now the associate director for the Office of Public Engagement. The purpose of Kalpen’s job is to coordinate with organizations associated with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. An itinerary for a conference call sent by Kalpen to Asian Pacific Americans for Progress gives you an idea of how Obama is coordinating with these organizations. Kalpen's job in the Obama administration put him directly in contact with the same groups, organizations, and personal contacts as Annabel.

We broke the story last week that Annabel Park and Eric Byler had interviewed Kal Penn Modi for Obama propaganda during the 2008 campaign. However, Annabel’s friend Eric Byler may have known Kalpen previously (Perhaps while they were both speaking at an APA Five conference together).

This Annabel-Kalpen connection creates a series of conundrums for the salivating MSMs, like the Washington Post and NY Times, who want to spin this AstroTurf group, the Coffee Party, as grassroots. How could the MSMs have known? Annabel said herself that the Coffee Party was grassroots, why do any investigative journalism?

Even without Annabel’s links to the Obama Administration, her associations don’t pass the sniff test. If it smells bitter, tastes bitter (h/t to Jacobson again), it must be Coffee Party.

Jacobson was called by the writer of the NY Times fluff piece on the Coffee Party, Kate Zernike. When Jacobson asked why the author had not further disclosed Annabel’s ties with the Obama administration, the author replied that she was limited to 700 words.

Kate, just a suggestion. Less publicity (via her article):

The party (coffeepartyusa.org) is planning nationwide coffee houses for March 13, where people can gather to decide which issues they want to take on and even which candidates they want to support.

This summer, Ms. Park said, the party will hold a convention in the Midwest, with a slogan along the lines of “Meet Me in the Middle.”

Umm - I was on to these guys last week, after a group of them counter-protested the San Antonio Tea Party rally on Feb. 21. I thought they were astroturf, just based on their website, and said so on my own website, last paragraph.http://www.ncobrief.com/index.php/archives/down-by-the-station/

I would love to see how many show up for that coffee clutch. Hey they could meet in the Show Me State :)

Honestly, I can see Progressives online joining a webpage, that doesn't mean they will dole out cash to travel somewhere, and stay somewhere, to do what jam into the local Starbucks? This is a tempest in a tea pot ;)

I think the Other McCain ought to plan on attending and taking photos. I suspect he will have a short turn around time.

Looks like everyone is getting in on the fun of outing a fraudulent creation! Use whatever you like of my own entries about the Coffee Party at The Daily Brief. My only regret is that I didn't screen-capture stuff!

So the whole this whole "Coffee Party" thing from top to bottom is wired into the activist community. I suspected as much. You gotta hand it to the Left; they know how to keep their mouths shut and stay in line.

I still stick with my blog post, though...one of these guys is going to have a record, and not just for working for the White House or the New York Times.

FACT CHECK: Did Annabel Park work for the Obama campaign?Thu, 2010-03-04 02:55 — Coffee Party USA

Annabel was never paid by the Obama campaign, but she worked very hard as volunteer, as did millions of other Americans. A newspaper inaccurately reported that Annabel held a videographer position. But, if there is anyone who cares about such things, and also cares about getting their facts straight, the truth is very easy to verify.

To date, neither Annabel nor her partner Eric Byler have ever been paid by a political campaign or by any political organization. They are active citizens who, as volunteers have knocked on doors, made phone, and made videos:

www.youtube.com/2010okinawa

www.youtube.com/9500Liberty

www.youtube.com/unitedforobama

www.youtube.com/ericbyler52

They are proud of a record of inventive civic engagement and have nothing to hide. If they didn't want people to see their work, they wouldn't have put it on YouTube in the first place!

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